Go BULL-DAWGS ! Oh I’m so sorry are my Indy roots showing.

Tim Moore claims that 80% of your radio activities will only produce about 20% of your successes.

As I drive along with my 15 year old daughter listening to the car radio as best I can because she is constantly switching stations. She seems to do it most when I start singing along. While listening to what I guess you would call her music It becomes very apparent that the only thing that has changed since I was a teenager is how embarrassingly explicit the words are. But the tunes are still about the same old thing and it’s the same old story that has been going on since the beginning of time. The Guy Rapper/Singers want more sex and the Girl Rapper/Singers as usual just want more and more romance. How does that tune go again … “If You Want It You Better Put A Ring On It”

At the staff meetings humor wise I can stay with most of the Jox most of the time but I sure can’t do it on the air. Big big difference!

Brent Farris said that when he was filling his car up the other day in Santa Rosa he saw a guy with Oregon plates pull in and just sit in his car by the pumps finally an attendant came out and said … Hey in California we pump our own gas Dude. The guy looked up rather astonished and said … And it costs more ??? How the hell does that work.

I think you only have 2 choices in life. You’ve got to make things happen or things will keep on happening to you.

There is only one reason to have the finest things in life and that reason is because you want them. Any other reason is wrong.

I wonder why spell check claims I misspell both my Daughters names. You would think by now I would kinda have it down.

When a radio friend of mine was getting married again after several failures his bride to be approached me and asked if I could give her any advice on what she could do to make sure she became his last wife. I told her I knew exactly what she had to do. All she had to do was give him unconditional adoration. She claimed that would be easy because she already adored him. I smiled and said the problem was that my friend didn’t deserve unconditional adoration he just demanded it and the moment you get tired of giving it to him he will find somebody just like you to give it to him again.

Speaking of my radio friend he said the reason he had married his previous wife was because she was so passionate. Turns out he said he was the one making all the noise.

I’m doing a panel at the the NAB in a few days where I finally get to meet one of my all time radio heroes John Gehron who is on the same panel as me. John was the master of WLS, my all time favorite radio station. I used to listen to WLS all the time while I was working odd jobs in Winnipeg. The thing I remember most about WLS was the way the Jox said the call letters. They all said them like they just loved saying them and couldn’t stop. Even Jox at other stations sounded like they would rather be saying WLS also. I really believe it was the way the talent said the call letters that got me interested in radio. They said them so proudly that I thought … Man they all love their job and I really hate mine, I think I’m going to get me some of that.

Have you ever noticed that we laugh at companies for doing things a certain way because thats the way they always did them. But most of us still live the way we always lived.

Fear is definitely an over rated motivator and usually ends badly for both parties.

The worst person in the world to lie to is yourself.

Mark Twain said Truth is stranger than Fiction because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, Truth isn’t.

I think radio wastes a lot of time worrying about its image, maybe it should just get on with the entertainment.

The difference between us and the animal kingdom is our brains contain flexible neurons that can learn by experience. Our job is to get the experience.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to have our elected politicians have to wear NASCAR type suits so it would be fairly obvious who their corporate sponsors were.

My upcoming session at the NAB titled Back To The Future 2.0 has me thinking about a lot of promotions I have been involved in over the years. One of them was the search for the fountain of youth which Papa’s younger brother Leicester Hemingway led us on. Leicester claimed he knew right where it was and could lead us to it. Now that I look back I think we would have been a whole lot better off looking for the fountain of smart.

My Daughter Candis who left Showbiz 5 years ago to become Super Mom recently taught an art class at my Grandson’s school. Instead of teaching the usual crafts things she taught them how to write a song. Here is what her and a bunch of 5 year olds came up with.

Cool 2 B a Kid

Wow Howard Stern suing his employer Sirius for millions. Hey that must be a real fun work environment to walk into each morning.

Richard Harker says that unknown 13 year olds create YouTube Videos that millions watch but most radio stations only generate hundreds of views.

A lot of people don’t realize that we were not given our independence we took it.

People who live in a Fantasy World do so because the real world is much too hard for them to cope with. Others just do a radio show.

Paul Cavenaugh told me that George Carlin claimed that the only reason there are still poor people in America is to scare the s**t out of the middle class.

What is the sense of building automobiles that can go from 0 – 60 in less than 4 seconds if the person who is first in line at a red light doesn’t use any of it when the light goes green.

My Daughter Cami asked me if I was hanging out with anybody in my building yet. I told her I wasn’t because there was nothing but old people living in my building. She said but Daddy your old too.

Thinking about Cami I just realized how old I thought my Father was when I was 15. Cami is 15 now and I’m even older than my Father was … Whoa!

The best thing about radio is … No Fees!

Speaking of free radio, no fees is no excuse for no new product.

My parents believed that our nation’s leaders would never lie to us. For some strange reason I do not hold the same belief.

Rivalry makes the world go round but you need not worry about how to ever conger it up, it’s always there.

If you have to use a funny voice to make something sound funny then it’s not funny.

It seems to me that even though it takes almost twice the gross billing to put an equal amount of money to the bottom line of radio it still makes a lot more sense to go after the billing than the cuts. I would think you eventually run out of things to cut but you never run out of potential billing. Making cuts takes no brain power but getting billing does so maybe therein lies the problem … I’m just sayin’

I had a real fun Saturday hanging out at a watering hole here in Florida on the inter coastal with a bunch of legends from the old WRMF days. All of them are still a lot funnier and more interesting than anything I hear today on 97 nine.

Its tough enough being successful in radio these days without adding to the frustration by thinking there might be a sub plot going on that your not aware of. Hey but then again what have you heard ???

Just because your paranoid doesn’t mean someone is not watching you.

Pessimism is a very powerful natural state. Optimism on the other hand is an acquired attitude that unfortunately needs to be worked on everyday before pessimism drags you down so far that only special drugs can bring you back.

We all know what everyone else should do, it’s what we should do that drives us crazy.

You win arguments with skill. It’s hard to be very skillful or even make any sense when your in the middle of rage. Right Mr. Sheen!

You cant fake courage you really have to have it.

A lot of what we were taught by both our parents and teachers was not true so now we deal with garbage in garbage out just like a computer.

Speaking of parents I think I’m a pretty honest guy but my Father was the most honest man I have ever met. I cant even come close to matching him in that arena.

 

Do you think they are having any meetings in Japan at the nuclear site right now about how to beat last years numbers.

Do we have to threaten to sue Arbitron to get them to measure Early Morning Radio correctly. That tactic sure seems to have worked well for Urban and Hispanic stations.

Mike McVay tells me the folks at the House Of Blues in Vegas are going to give us a very special private room to hang out in Monday Night April 11. I figure if we get into the wine far enough we just may end up reinventing radio. Lord knows it needs it.

I was visiting an LA radio station in the late 70s and the SM picked me up at the airport in his Fire Red Ferrari. I remember thinking at the time … I think this market may be just a little different.

Cris Conner reminded me about a promotion we ran in Indy years ago on WNAP where we said we are going commercial free for a little while so if you catch us playing one be the first caller and we’ll give you a 100 Bucks. A few minutes later we ran a sweeper and the phones blew out with the folks demanding their money. When we did the same thing in Philly we were hip to the liner thing so we pulled those during the commercial free sweep but when we played a jingle, bam there goes the phones again, OK pull them too. The next morning we once again go commercial free without liners or jingles but then when the News comes on we blew up the phones again with people demanding their 100 dollars. Turns out that anything the folks don’t want or like just all sounds like commercials to them.

When you finally get to the fine print there is nothing good waiting for you there.

According to Lee Abrams we live in a radio era of very hollow mission statements.

My Singer Song Writer Iron man Daughter Candis tells me that a well organized student will get better grades than a non organized smarter student. Do you think my Grandson Nathaniel will have a choice.

Jay Williams says he finds my anti Mr. Businessman attitude interesting. I told him I wasn’t anti Mr. Businessman at all, I just feel compelled to point out that he isn’t as clever as he wants us to think he is. For sure none of us would ever pay him what he pays himself.

Have you ever received a phone call from someone who actually wanted to give you something.

I think the only way holistic type healing works is if you believe it does.

I remember in Canada in the 60s Prime Minister Trudeau advising students that they should take a year off from their studies and hitchhike across Canada to learn more about our great nation and it’s people. Can you imagine saying that today. What the hell went wrong.

Learning to dream big is the quest, mainly so you can prepare for your dreams should they come true. How to control your dreams becomes the next task so your dreams don’t control you like they did me.

The thing about systems is they help eliminate the downside but unfortunately they also help eliminate the up side.

My Daughter Cami has informed me that she detests Lady Ga Ga so I’m definitely crossing her off my Christmas card list. I mean do I have a choice.

Speaking of Cami I was going through some old stuff today and came across a Birthday Card she had made for me when she was a little girl. It talked about how what a great Daddy I was and how sweet I was because she bossed me around a lot and I didn’t seem to mind.

Jim Hilliard called the other day and said that he opened a can of worms with his wife Barbara when he told her he needed to take car of me financially for some projects I had been working on for him. Barb then proceeded to lecture him about me for an hour and a half. Jim said he has come to the conclusion that he is sleeping with my agent.

My old partner Bill Yde told me years ago that he was never marrying a beautiful woman again because they just get you into bar fights. I saw him last year at my Brother’s Christmas party in San Diego for the first time in about 20 years and when he introduced me to his wife I immediately commented … Bill I can see you have changed your mind about not marrying a beautiful woman, he laughed and we caught up on old times. The other day Bill informed me that he accidentally banged into the door while getting into his car and broke his front tooth out. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I’m sure the staff at both Cumulus and Citadel are very nervous but I’ve always told everybody that it really doesn’t matter who owns Pizza hut. The first time to start worrying is when they tell you to use less cheese. What do you mean you heard they aren’t going to use any cheese … Run !

I wonder how long that free money from the Government is going to keep on flowing to NPR now that their attitude is showing.

I remember once having a meeting with an NPR executive in Washington and was telling him about a station in Toronto that was allowed to run one 60 second commercial per hour for revenue besides doing the basic fund raising. He thought about it for a moment and said, even if we had that right we wouldn’t do it our listeners don’t like commercials. I wonder if a new kind of attitude is lurking just around the corner.

I’m doing a panel at the NAB in Vegas this year with Tim Moore called Back To The Future 2.0. This session is about whether or not some of the things we used to do in radio will still work today in the new world of PPM. Pondering all this has brought back some great memories some of the many promotions I’ve been involved in. One of the neatest was a sales/programming promotion that Tim Reever and I worked on together for the 100 year anniversary of the Boston Marathon. Being the Granddaddy of all Marathons the Boston Marathon folks were reluctant to get involved with very many sponsors of the event and tried keep it a pure athletic event rather than a sponsor event most sports seem to be involved in now. Tim and I of course had other plans and It just so happened that our radio station was located in the Prudential Tower in the Back bay which was mere feet away from the finish line. We rented the side walk out front for 50 thousand dollars just for one day. Crazy right ? Wrong! We ended up netting a half a million dollars for that day, no spots involved. We knew a lot of National Sponsors wanted to somehow tie their name to that historic event and we had the way for them to do it. A lot of them had product they wanted sampled so we included that in our plan. Tim even built bleachers for corporate sponsors that had a beer garden on them so they could watch the finish of the race in comfort and even sample some of the products from our beer sponsor. I think what made it all really work was the fact that Tim and I were runners and were really into the whole event. Tim in fact ran in the race while his sales folks took care of our invited sponsors. The on air folks handed out tons of free neat stuff to the gathering crowd and we also did some live cut ins. I don’t think this promotion will ever be done again because who is left in radio today that would have the balls to ask for 50 grand for one day, never mind the fact the person they were asking it from wouldn’t have any idea about what the hell they were talking about nor how to do the accounting for it. They don’t teach these great kinds of promotional events at Harvard I guess.

Can you imagine what Hitler must have said as he was marching through Europe almost unresisted upon hearing that Japan had just bombed Pearl Harbor awakening the sleeping giant, America. I would love to see one of those Hitler rants that are going around done on this subject.

A torrid tale of a lusty night when written by a man is usually much longer than the event itself. The same tale written by a woman is usually much shorter than the same event.

One of the big problems Arbitron has always had is it over measures people who don’t buy anything.

Doug Erickson claims that fear programs the music at most radio stations.

Unfortunately the instructions on how to get out of the box your stuck in are written on the outside of the box.

The only difference between you making 50 thousand a year or 50 thousand a month is knowledge.

Beating last years numbers means nothing. The whole world changed since last year.

You are who you act like.

How you language things is everything.

The only reason to have a goal is so you can become the type of person who figures out how to hit that goal. There is no sense in having a goal you know you can hit, the Wright Brothers and Edison sure didn’t.

I was listening to Mark Foley’s show the other night and noticed he is sounding more and more like a broadcaster and less and less like a politician. That might not be a good thing.

Nothing fixes itself, in fact everything is always in a state of destruction. Creativity is the exact opposite of all that.

I had a lot of good suggestions about what Donna Schaneen should have do to make my Blog but most of them are unprintable.

See if you can follow the bouncing ball on this scenario. A few years ago Richard M. Fairbanks got tired of waiting for the bubble of his cash cow radio stations to burst so he sold them. The last few to go were right here in West Palm Beach where he put Jim Hilliard in charge of selling them. Jim quickly sold them to Clear Channel which produced a small problem for them. CC couldn’t buy them all because it put them over the FCC’s station limitations so Tim Reever and I talked Jim into buying WRMF. We both felt strongly that it still had lot of growth left in it even though it was doing very well at the time.

Tim and I had recently done some good work together in Boston using a bunch of sales promotions but which all really sounded more like programming promotions. We used this technique to boost both the revenue and ratings at the same time. Our power ratio was off the charts so we kinda figured what with the great ratings WRMF had not to mention the name air talent that worked at the station who could drive the promotions we thought this concept should work even better in Florida. When we added in my brother Reg’s new hi tech invention of The Rewards Program which merged the radio station with the Internet we knew were on to something and it wasn’t long until we were taking a ton of money off the table and we ended up doing 20 – 25 % of the market consistently. This sales performance eventually led to Emmis Communications offering Jim 103 Million Dollars for the station. Now all is well with the world and our job seems to be complete. Except when Emmis does their due diligence they cant quite figure out how we are doing what we are doing because the power ratio is way beyond anything they have ever seen before. They have no idea how they are going to keep up with that let alone do even more with their cost per point style of radio so they walk away from the deal.

After a little tire kicking by a few other radio companies Great Hill Partners offers Hilliard 70 Million which still was a record sale but certainly not the 103 Million the cash flow multiples supported. Great Hill Partners moves in and takes over WRMF we wish them well and a few of us move on. But not long after our departure they start getting rid of some of the name air talent plus some of the higher paid sales people.Their plan I guess is to install their own version of the Clear Channel kinda systems that is supposed to make them more efficient while heading upwards and onwards. But the system turns out to be just another version of the old school “cost per point” method of sales. The opposite effect of upwards and onwards begins to happen and their share of revenue starts shrinking to the reported 12 % they now have. To make things even worse the ratings are no longer anything to write home about either. You would think they would catch a break soon, but no here comes the recession which takes the all important cash flow down even further. Hello can you shout Fire Sale !

As this sorry saga with what seems like bad karma written all over it continues a well respected Broadcaster by the name of Carl Hirsch comes to WRMF’s rescue last Friday and buys the station for 16.5 Million which gives the now very lean staff some new found hope and everybody sighs a sigh of relief. He immediately dies on Monday.

Our Mothers tried to convince us that it is not about winning or losing it’s about how you play the game. Our Fathers said no no son it is all about winning or losing. But as I look around I’m convinced that it may not be whether you win or lose at all it may be just about how and where you place the blame.

Bob Christy said he was walking through Costco and caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror and in shock said … What the hell is my father doing here out of the grave.

Donna Schaneen asked what she has to do to make my Blog.

Speaking of Donna, according to her I’m having a lot more fun than I realized or at least my reputation is.

I wonder how many of the auto workers who were making Doctors wages at job my youngest daughter probably could have done take any responsibility for the demise of Detroit.

Anyone can buy a radio station that just takes money but making them successful can only be done by very special people.

I just saw a funny bumper sticker that read … BEER! Helping Ugly People Get Laid Since 1862.

Randy Newman said at this years Oscars when asked how one would break into the music business … Why the hell would you want to do that he replied, it’s like breaking into a bank that’s already been robbed.

I think the problem with most of our radio leaders today is they all took “business” classes at Harvard Business School type institutions, but none of those places offer “show” courses that I’m aware of so I figure they only got half an education.

Jay Williams told me that an old adage states that if you have a Hundred Dollars making a Hundred and Ten takes a lot of hard work. But if you have a Hundred Million making a Hundred and Ten is automatic. I’m sure he heard that from Richard M Fairbanks.

Brent Farris of KZST said when he interviewed Ken Mansfield who used to be “The Beatles” American Manager this morning, Ken told him that Paul didn’t want to release Hey Jude as a single because it was too long. He changed his mind when Ken informed him that Jim Hilliard then PD of WFIL said he would play it.

I think our Government spends a way too much time worrying about the rich and the poor.

Even though I like to pretend I designed my new Web Page it was really a talented on air guy by the name of Rich Stevens who has a company that does this sorta thing called Thinkful Solutions that did all the heavy lifting. If I’m not mistaken he snuck a link onto my page.